Public Reason was born out of frustration with how the U.S. political system operates. We've watched political commentary and news explode in volume, alongside a real and growing divide in how we engage with our government and with each other.

We believe the meteoric rise of content, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle is having a net-negative effect on our system of government, and we want to do something about it.We're not another news outlet, pundit, content creator, or entertainer asking for your trust.

Public Reason doesn't want your trust. We want you to trust yourself.

Government has grown, and that growth has made it more complex and harder for the average citizen to understand and navigate. At the same time, the 24-hour news cycle and social media have exploded our access to information, making it harder to tell what's real, what's fake, what's biased, and what's manipulative. Meanwhile, our politicians, who didn't have a sparkling reputation to begin with, remain deeply unpopular, and yet keep getting reelected.

These are all symptoms of the same underlying problem: we, the people, have become largely removed from the government that's supposed to represent us. Because government has grown, we're insulated from it by size and complexity. And because we don't feel we can impact our government, that frustration gets redirected at each other, the people we actually interact with every day, driving division and growing skepticism of government, media, and one another.

We believe that giving you the chance to see what government is doing, straight from the source, cuts out the layers of filtering, translation, and opinion that make engagement confusing and difficult. That access gives you a holistic view of government action and empowers you to use your own judgment, rather than relying on, or being limited to, someone else's information or perspective.

Ultimately, we want this to become an opportunity for everyone to get engaged, and we'll teach you how. But before we can do that, we need to make sure there's a reliable source of information to build on.